Copycat Criminals

The recent wave of bank robberies seems to me typical of the relaxed but opportunistic Portuguese attitudes.

In general, the Portuguese are not physically violent; though very prone to verbal abuse. We can even see this in their approach to bank robbing - weapons are carried but never used. The impersonal institution loses a small amount of cash while customers are rarely victims. This is hardly "violent" crime, as seen in other countries.

Why this sudden wave of crime? Because the media has explained clearly and repeatedly that the probability of being caught is practically zero. The crimes last only a few minutes and the police are unlikely to get there in time. It's similar to the chronic disregard for traffic law, which has fallen significantly as the chances of being caught increase.

I don't think this recent increase is due to the recession, just opportunism, a fad that will wear off soon.

Kung Fu Panda

It's holiday time again, and that means getting away from work and pampering the kids. So I took the younger one to see Kung Fu Panda.

Now even at 10 years old, he's understood that such films are better in English with subtitles, not dubbed into Portuguese. So we went to Rio Sul in Seixal, bought our tickets and popcorn and sat in the cinema - first to arrive! 10 minutes later the doors clicked shut and the film started, with just the two of us in a 100 seat theatre! I don't know how the cinema makes money in these circumstances, but we were very comfortable.

As for the film, it's good for 10 year-olds, but has little to keep an adult's attention. The story line is weak, even compared with other recent Disney efforts, the characters rather shallow, and the action and comedy cannot make up for this shortfall. That said, there is action, and comedy, especially in the training sequences, where Panda takes on the master in a fight to get food.

Overall, hardly a Disney masterpiece, barely worth seeing unless you really have nothing better to do with holidaying kids.

Popular Taxation

The introduction of IMI (Imposto Municipal sobre Imóveis) in 2004 was a great step forward in balancing the taxation of property ownership in Portugal and stopping evasion on property transfers, now subject to IMT (previously SISA). The basic rule was that all transactions would be assumed to have been carried out at a price based on area, location and year of construction. Thus under-declaring transaction values to avoid transfer tax became pointless and practically died out since assessed values were very close to real values.

Property was thereafter taxed annually based on this same value, making property ownership a rather painful pastime, particularly for well-off people with large and new houses.

However, the property crash has caused a glitch in the system. Owners are now being taxed annually based on values that they cannot hope to achieve in the open market.

So what was the government's reaction? Tweak the tax rate downwards! That has a number of political benefits, such as benefitting the middle classes directly, while the reduction in tax revenue is hidden from the deficit calculation as the tax income was allocated to local authorities, not to central government. Of course, the underlying principle is wrong: there was nothing wrong with the tax rate, only with the property valuations, but since when has logic applied when votes are at stake?

I wonder what they will tweak next, as elections approach. Perhaps they should have left this one to next year, as there isn't much room for manoeuvre anywhere else...